


Beasts of Prey

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), RAW fanthology, Serious Injuries, chiyoh history, chiyoh pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 10:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7680634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chiyoh never saw herself as a caretaker. She was a gamekeeper. She was the guard that kept poachers away from her rare beast. Rare, if not entirely unique, and because of that he was beautiful in the way that an Amur Leopard or a South China tiger is beautiful. Their scarcity, their endangered status, means they must be protected at all costs. She forgave Hannibal his nature and made her own peace.</p><p>Translation into Русский язык by <a href="http://hannigray.tumblr.com/">Hanigray</a> <a href="https://ficbook.net/readfic/5124098"> here at Ficbook</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Beasts of Prey

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [RAW fanthology ](http://rawfanzine.tumblr.com/) book.

For the first year of her life in the Lecter manor, Chiyoh was afraid of the hunting dogs the Count kept. He had a pack of borzýe and her first encounter with them was traumatic. She saw them on their return from a hunting party and the dogs were bloodied, long muzzles red and fur matted. At first she had thought it was theirs, but then she saw the wolf carcass strapped to the back of the horse and knew it was from their quarry. 

She was afraid of the dogs for a long time after that. Her nightmares were of running through the dark forests of her new home, fleeing through the unfamiliar night while the pack bayed behind her, blood on their breath. They would tear at her with their sharp teeth, and drag her to the manor where she would be too savaged to display. In all the stories the old women told, she had been taught to fear the wolf, but the wolf ran from Count Lecter's borzýe, so what then was she to fear but the dogs?

Chiyoh remained afraid of them until the day one of the bitches whelped three tiny, helpless puppies and Lady Murasaki gave her one. A companion of her own, Murasaki had said. To keep her safe. To be her confidant and her helpmeet. It was hard to fear something that needed you so desperately and by the time the dog was grown, Chiyoh had learned to see past the living mass of tooth and claw that had run her down in her dreams. Suddenly there were personalities, playfulness, laziness, and a deep abiding love for those that kept them.

The first time Chiyoh met Hannibal, he was an underfed, angular creature, dirty and bruised. He would not speak, and she wasn't sure if it was by choice or not. The Count didn't know what to do with his more than half-feral nephew, but Chiyoh had learned how to love the creatures under her care and she bribed Hannibal to the bath with food.

He snapped at her like an animal and tried to escape the room when she attempted to undress him, clawing at her until he drew blood. Chiyoh released him and sat on the floor with a plate of bread still warm from the oven, sharp cheddar, and thick slices of ham. The room was locked, and he paced back and forth, occasionally taking steps towards her like he was thinking of attacking her.

She waited, talking to Hannibal in a low voice; sweet, soothing nonsense in Japanese. The unfamiliar language forced him to listen to her tone and slowly he crept closer. When was within reach, she gave him more food. He ate by stuffing as much in his mouth as he could at one time, swallowing in huge gulps, eyes on her. 

Slowly, slowly she coaxed him into the bath. He had such a sharp, intelligent light in his eyes and he watched her, barely blinking, as she settled down on a stool next to him. He didn't make a sound as she cleaned the small cuts on his body, or when she combed the lice from his hair. She half expected Hannibal to disappear that night, to run off into the woods to be with the wolves. Instead he appeared in the doorway to her room, dragging the blanket from his own bed. 

Chiyoh held up the covers for him and he crawled in next to her. He was so small, curled up into a tight ball, and his bony knees and elbows jabbed at her. She stroked his hair, carding her fingers gently through the soft strands, and eventually he slept. Chiyoh watched over him that night, tucking him close to her when his limbs twitched with his dreaming and petting away the frown from his forehead.

After that, Hannibal followed her, close at her heels, wherever she went. She watched him transform. He took to his new life with determination, developing a sort of pathological cleanliness, washing his hands red-raw, fussy about keeping his clothing clean, incredibly protective of his own space - everything in it aligned perfectly with everything else. He took meals with them at the table but he hoarded food in his room, stuffed under his pillow, hidden in drawers. She had seen him sneaking it from the table and from the kitchen, and when the dogs started whining at the closed door, she investigated and discovered that Hannibal had killed several rats and was hoarding their corpses. For what purpose she did not want to imagine. Chiyoh left the bodies where they were. Taking a bone from a starving dog never went well.

The cook was a hard-faced Lithuanian woman, who caught Hannibal taking food from the pantry one too many times. Chiyoh thought she was without pity as she scolded Hannibal mercilessly, waving a wooden spoon at him until his lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl. Then she told him if he was going to be in the kitchen then he was going to help her, and Hannibal slowly calmed. Ten minutes later Chiyoh knew what love at first sight looked like as Hannibal kneaded the dough for bread. He didn't even fret about the flour on his clothing, or the dough on his hands. He smiled for the first time since she had met him.

After that, any lingering fear in him was gone, and she could see his natural fierceness. Eventually he spoke. Eventually the rats disappeared, and then the hoards of food. He gained weight and smiled more. Chiyoh watched him grow from a strange child into a strange young man. If a man is what he ever was. The others all wanted to forget the feral creature that had first come to them, but it was still there, under everything.

She never fooled herself into thinking Hannibal was safe. He wasn't part of the family, not really. He was always searching for his own kind. He did not find what he was looking for in the boarding schools of Paris, or the American university. He didn't find it in the ER, or in the minds of his patients, and he didn't find it in the bodies he left behind him. Chiyoh, alone with her prisoner, wondered if Hannibal was doomed to roam the earth alone. For many bitter years she wished him the same isolation that he had inflicted on her. But you cannot be angry at an animal for its nature, not really.

Chiyoh never saw herself as a caretaker. She was a gamekeeper. She was the guard that kept poachers away from her rare beast. Rare, if not entirely unique, and because of that he was beautiful in the way that an Amur Leopard or a South China tiger is beautiful. Their scarcity, their endangered status, means they must be protected at all costs. She forgave Hannibal his nature and made her own peace.

Then there was Will Graham, tearing into her life. There was something hunted about him. Half-predator, half-prey. He was strange to her at first, coming so far across the globe to stare at ghosts, but soon she saw Hannibal in him. Hannibal had left her a philosophical Gordian Knot on the question of mercy and forgiveness. Will was a man who had no more patience for puzzles. He had to have answers. He forced her hand because he had to know what she would do. 

Chiyoh wondered if he had done it out of cruelty or kindness, and if he even knew the answer himself. He wanted to see what she would do, but he also ensured her prisoner would be free, one way or the other. Ultimately, the only time he appeared to have any clarity at all was when he transformed her prisoner into something beautiful. Then she understood. She knew what Hannibal had seen in him, what Will was trying to bury and exhume at the same time. They were the same strange species, he and Hannibal.

Chiyoh would have let Will follow at her heel on her journey to Florence, soothed the nightmares he was sure to have, but he couldn't be tamed with kindness. She set him loose and like a scent dog, he tracked Hannibal perfectly, leading her straight to her charge. It was there that she saw something new in Hannibal for the first time in many years. It took her some time to recall that the softness in his eyes when he looked at Will Graham was the same thing she had seen in her borzoi. Unwavering, perfect love. For all the good it did him.

Chiyoh didn't pretend to understand Hannibal's plans when first he tried to murder Will, and then rescue him, and then he turn himself in. Perhaps he was unable or unwilling to understand his own feelings. Either way, she contented herself with the knowledge that at least now he had made up his mind and was safe in the cage of his own making. 

For three years Chiyoh lived her life in Baltimore. She had funds and means because of the Lecter estate, which she had full access to, and she enjoyed her time as a free woman. She explored Washington DC, New York, Chicago on week-long trips, finding her way back into the world. She lead a quiet life, but still so much busier than she was used to. She tired easily of the city. There were so many people around her. The quiet of the forest was lost to her, but where her charge was, there she had to be.

Of course Will Graham came back. Three years was nothing, not after what Hannibal had done to him. She thought, of course he came, it's love. What else was he going to do? 

In her reading and understanding, Chiyoh had seen several predators who took same-sex partners. Vultures, lions, polecats, dolphins, many of the primates, hyenas...the list went on. Will Graham was not the mate she was expecting Hannibal to take, but the one he had chosen. The one that had finally chosen him as well.

If it made Hannibal happy, and it did, then she was willing to work with that. It was her charge to protect this endangered species. Hannibal was a strange and beautiful animal, full of animal cunning, but Will Graham was involved and, in all honesty, that made him slightly stupid in the way that love makes everyone slightly stupid. It was the most bizarre mating dance she had ever seen. 

She wondered what they would do considering Hannibal was stuck in his bulletproof prison, but Will - canny and cunning behind that pretty face - unlocked the cage and let Hannibal out. Chiyoh followed, because they were hunted. She protected them because she could not let the poachers win.

Hannibal hit the water first, she saw it, the way he twisted like a cat to take the majority of the impact. Maybe it was just the way they fell. Maybe he was trying to protect Will. Maybe he thought if only one of them could live, it should be Will, forced to carry on with the guilt of what he'd done. 

"GSW to the abdomen, through and through. Looks like the liver has ruptured. Male, fifty, pulse weak and thready, hypothermic, water sounds in the lungs, massive bruising to the back, upper arms, feet, thighs from blunt force trauma. Possible whiplash, possible concussion - pupils slow to respond."

The doctors rushed Hannibal into surgery. His lips were blue and his skin was grey. He looked dead but they were packing heating pads onto his chest and against his femoral artery to warm him up. Down but not out.

Will Graham, on the gurney right behind Hannibal, looked only slightly better than Hannibal did. In the chaos it was easy for her to slip into the hospital proper after them. She might not be able to heal them, but damned if she would let them slip away now. Will went in one direction, Hannibal in another. Chiyoh stopped to see how Will was doing, when Hannibal woke up he would want to know.

"Penetrating wound to the shoulder, and cheek," the attending said, and then asked Will, "Sir, can you tell me your name?"

"Bill," Will mumbled, blood on his teeth, running down his chin. "They have Alexander."

The doctor shone a light into Will's eyes, someone else was checking his blood pressure and pulse. "Can you tell me what happened to you?"

Some hospitals have a policy that they call in all gunshot wounds. Some don't. Chiyoh was willing to gamble that Hannibal took that into consideration when choosing his hideout and the hospital they were in was the nearest hospital to his cliff-top house. If Will stalled, if he kept his mouth shut, they would have just a little longer to get out of town before anyone found their trail and thought to follow it.

"I don't remember," Will said, voice rising with faux fear. Good boy. "I don't remember," Will said again. "Is he - is Alexander going to survive?"

"We're doing all we can, sir."

"Is he going to be alright?" Now there was real fear in his voice.

"Bill, I need you to remain calm. Let's focus on you right now."

Chiyoh was not worried about Will's survival. He was in competent hands, awake and speaking, lucid enough to be on his feet in a moment if he had to. 

Chiyoh was very good at making herself go unnoticed and she slipped through the hospital like a shadow. No one stopped her as she went to the observation area where students could sit and watch their professors operate. It was empty, monitors off. She didn't turn them on, just stood in front of the window, waiting.

It was not easy to see Hannibal on the table. He had always been so vital. But there he was meat, and bone, and breath. There was a tube down his throat, machines that chirped out his pulse, surgeons with their hands covered in his blood. 

The human body can take so much more punishment than other animals. Chiyoh reminded herself of the human capacity for pain and damage. She reminded herself of _Hannibal's_ capacity for pain and damage and his ability to push on regardless. Probably she should have decided what she would do if he died, but she didn't.

Hannibal was stubborn, and lucky. He had a nearly inhuman ability to force his body to go on long after it should have stopped. Chiyoh realized she was whispering to herself, telling him to get up, to go on, to survive. And then he did. They closed him up and wrapped him in bandages and wheeled him into the ICU to monitor him for bleeding into his abdominal cavity.

When they left him alone, bed curtained off from prying eyes, she took a sentry position next to him. Hannibal was flat on his back, looking small. Silvery stubble roughened Hannibal's cheeks and chin. His hair stuck up in every direction. There was an IV stand with two hanging bags attached to his arm. The left side of his face was swollen and bruised. He breathed steadily, without assistance. She pet a hand through his hair, smoothing it down, and waited. Not for as long as she thought she would have to.

Will's tolerance for pain medication was higher than Chiyoh had expected. He came to find Hannibal while she was preparing her car for the both of them. When she returned to Hannibal's bed, Will was there. He had stitches in his cheek and one arm was strapped to his torso, bandaging thick underneath his stolen scrubs.

Chiyoh hung back a little, watching between the curtains to observe them and make sure this was the best for her charge.

Will gently shook Hannibal's shoulder. "We have to go," Will said, barely moving his mouth at all. Hannibal opened his eyes and looked at Will, groggy and confused.

"My beautiful boy," Hannibal said, in Lithuanian. "What have you done to your face?"

Will pulled the blankets off Hannibal and fumbled with the remote on the bed trying to get Hannibal into a sitting position. Once Hannibal was mostly upright, Will dragged a wheelchair over to the bed and kicked at the breaks.

"Hannibal, do you have somewhere for us to go?" he asked.

"Come here and let me look at you," Hannibal said, this time in Japanese. Chiyoh was pleased to see he was still conversational at least. His accent was appalling, but it had always been bad.

"English, Hannibal, please," Will begged. He snatched up Hannibal's chart from the rack on the bed frame and folded up the papers. They didn't really fit in the pocket of the scrubs. "Come on, concentrate."

Hannibal blinked at him, slow and sleepy. "Are we going somewhere?" His English was slurred and nearly incomprehensible.

"Yes. Yes, god, come on. You need to help me, I can't lift you." 

"I was not certain you would survive the fall," Chiyoh said, deliberate, as she revealed herself.

Will startled, his good hand grabbed onto the railing of the bed for support. Chiyoh had her sawed-off shotgun under her long coat and Will's eyes went to it, but there was nothing but relief on his face.

"It was you," he said. "You pulled us out of the water. You called the ambulance."

"Yes. Do you still intend to die?" She rested her hand on the stock of the gun, ready to draw it.

Will made sure to look her dead in the eye. "No. We lived, so we might as well live. Will you help us?"

She came closer, standing so Hannibal could see her. "There are bugs that eat even itadori," Chiyoh said. It was something of an old proverb. A little bit 'to each their own,' a little bit 'there's no accounting for taste.' "Do you want him to come, after everything?"

"Will is not itadori!" Hannibal protested. He reached out for Will, and Will took his hand, both of them with the same mulish expression on their faces.

"Perhaps you are the knotweed," Chiyoh said with a small smile. "Because no one else would devour you as you wish to devour everything in your path."

Will made a small hissing sound between his teeth as his breath left him. He was visibly exasperated. "We're both the bugs, and the weeds, and the fall, and the cliff, and we have to get out of here!" he said urgently.

"I will go nowhere without Will," Hannibal said. That was good enough for Chiyoh.

Together, Will lifting with one arm, Chiyoh with both, and Hannibal helping as much as he could, they got Hannibal into the wheelchair and wrapped a blanket around him.

"Follow me," Chiyoh said, taking the handles of the chair and pushing it out into the hallway. She walked with purpose and didn't look back. She could hear Will limping after her on feet that were probably bruised and painful.

They manoeuvred Hannibal onto the fold-down back seat of her car so he could lie flat and Will climbed in after him, refusing to let go. Hannibal was unconscious again before she had even folded up the wheelchair and put it in the passenger seat.

Will put his hand on Hannibal's chest. "Why do you follow him?" Will asked as she started the car. 

"Why did you make a man into a firefly?" Chiyoh looked into the rear-view to meet his eyes for a moment. "We are all creatures in the savage garden, we do what we must."

"Keeping that man in a cage was cruel," Will said carefully. "Killing him would have been a kindness."

"He did not deserve kindness." She felt impatient, they had been over this. What she did was none of his business. She had shot him once, she would do it again if she had to.

"And your desire to preserve that line between killer and innocent made you into an instrument of torture."

Chiyoh turned up the heating in the car. Under Will's hand, Hannibal breathed, slow and steady. "Are you judging me, or trying to understand my workings?"

"Both," Will admitted. 

"You will not," she said at last. "But understand that I watched Hannibal create the sheep's clothing he wore for so long. I have been his keeper for many years, his protector when he was too small to hunt for himself. Even beasts of prey need protection sometimes."

Will was quiet after that. When they were just pulling into her driveway he said, "He's just a man."

Together they got Hannibal into the guest bed, wrapped warmly. Chiyoh beckoned for Will to follow her and had him sit. She fed him warm, plain broth and watched him while he ate.

"Thank you," Will said. "I don't think I've ever thanked you."

She gave him a bowl of warm water and a washcloth and sent him to be with Hannibal. "He will let you keep him," she said. "He will give you his devotion, and follow you loyally. Will you do the same?"

"Is this the talk where you tell me you'll hurt me if I hurt him?" Will asked. When she didn't reply he nodded. "Yeah. This is it for me."

"Then I will protect you both," Chiyoh said and left so they could be alone and she could make herself something to eat.

When she checked on them later, Hannibal was awake, Will curled up around him, in a nest of blankets and pillows to support their injuries.

"You look very upset," Hannibal was saying. "Considering you pulled us off a cliff."

Will kissed Hannibal's forehead, his eyelids, hand gentle on his head. "All birth is pain," he said. "And from it comes new life."

"I don't feel reborn," Hannibal grumbled. "I feel like I've been shot and beaten. I feel very old."

"You are old," Will said, teasing. "Look at all this grey hair. Did you used to dye it?" He nosed against Hannibal's ear and the short bristle of the hair at his temple.

Hannibal looked extremely affronted. "I did not." He was an exceptional manipulator and liar. Chiyoh had never seen him so open, so easy to read. 

Will didn't smile at him, his face still partially paralyzed from the anesthetics, but there was such warmth in his eyes. "You're ridiculous," he said. 

Hannibal saw her in the doorway and Will turned his head to see what Hannibal was looking at. Chiyoh set her shotgun next to the chair in the corner and settled herself down with her e-reader, opening up the article she'd tagged earlier that week. Will glanced at Hannibal, unsure, but Hannibal just tucked Will close.

Chiyoh watched them fall asleep together, her little pack of two, then returned to reading about a mated pair of male penguins who tried to hatch a rock until their keepers provided them with an egg. She had heard about Hannibal and Will's efforts with the Hobbs girl, the disaster with the Verger woman, and Will's solo attempts to build a family. Chiyoh thought fondly of the little borzoi puppy she had kept. Perhaps it was time for them to stop incubating rocks. She would have to find them an egg.

**Author's Note:**

> RAW is a 200 page, hardback, gilded-edge book with a ribbon bookmark and spot-gloss bloodspatter that is super-cool. It comes with with 1 bookplate and 2 gold seals. If you missed out on owning a copy and would like to get one, I have a few that I will be selling. The cost of each book is $30 plus shipping– I will be shipping from Canada, and international shipping varies wildly. Payment is by PayPal– once you pay I will take your order to the post office and you will get a tracking number. 
> 
> All inquiries can be sent through tumblr or e-mail (xzombiexkittenx at gmail dot com)


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